Ponderings on Life, the Universe, and Information

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Everything here represents my own opinion unless clearly stated otherwise. I do this on my personal time for my own satisfaction. Nothing should be construed as specific advice as you have to pay for advice that goes beyond generalizations.

I’ve talked a little bit here about the need to improve the local communities for information management. It is an area that ARMA does better than other groups in the industry but their focus and members can be intimidating for those who aren’t records managers. AIIM chapters are a decent alternative but there are a lot of challenges.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been chatting offline with some chapter leaders from both associations, brainstorming ideas, and trying to think of ways to improve the local community. Some of these discussions became more focused when Kevin Parker became the president of the local AIIM chapter, NCC-AIIM. During one of these discussions I agreed to join the chapter’s executive committee.

Why Community Matters

We are in a different world from when industry associations initially formed. The Internet makes the exchange of ideas easy. Anyone can publish an article and have it peer-reviewed in the comments and on Twitter.

What the Internet hasn’t mastered is the creation of mentoring relationships, deep conversations, and those long conversations where people give undivided attention. Conferences like InfoGovCon and AIIM provide that to some degree but their cost, infrequency, and need to miss work make them impractical for a steady stream of interaction.

That is where the local community comes into play. Depending on the industry, there is usually a monthly or even weekly cadence of meetings. While few people attend them all, over the course of a few months you run into a wide variety of people, exchange ideas, and build a true sense of community that is moving forward together.

What I Hope to Bring

I’ve been participating and volunteering in a few local communities for almost 10 years in the DC area. Most are around the web with a more recent focus on User Experience (UX) and Design Thinking. I currently run the social media for OpenIDEODC which let’s me learn more about the challenges of running a successful community and connecting with like-minded organizations.

I hope to bring this experience in a more official capacity to NCC-AIIM. I’ve now been in my current role as a Director at Dominion Consulting for a year and feel that I can start to consistently make time for a real role. I am not sure I can commit to being an officer, helping to lead and advise seems like the right commitment level for me at the moment.

My hope is that working with Kevin and the rest of the executive committee, we can try and evolve the chapter into a more dynamic, 21st century, organization that can appeal to a broader swath of participants. Governance and information are hot topics in DC and there is no reason we can’t create an attractive program, expand our reach, and team with other groups to create an energized chapter.

Time Will Tell

Of course, our efforts may fall short of those lofty goals. We may exceed them. We will never know until we try. There is a need for people to connect. We need to reach out and find a way to create a thriving organization whose biggest struggle is finding a large enough space to meet.

We aren’t there yet. It is summer and the time for planning. I’m excited to help and to put my time and money where my mouth had been for some time. I’ll share the lessons, good and bad, and seek advice. I know I don’t have all the answers. I do have ideas to try and a determination to try and make a difference.

Like this:

It’s been a while since I wrote a book review, mostly because I’ve been reading fiction and history, neither of which really fit this blog. However I just finished a book that definitely deserves a review, Women In Tech.

First, the TLDR: Read the book!

Women in Tech was written by Tarah Wheeler Van Vlack in conjunction with women drawn from across the tech world. It is a blend of a career guidebook and inspirational stories written by women from different backgrounds. Each woman has made their unique mark in the industry.

Before I get much further with this review, it must be noted that as a man, I am not the primary target for this book. That is not to say I didn’t gain value from reading it. Far from it.

I learned a lot and enjoyed reading the book. Women in Tech is well written, humorous at times, and I highly recommend it for anyone in the tech industry. One last note, as women were the primary audience, my perspective on the book should be considered in that light.

Like this:

When I dove into the debate on Content Services and ECM, my conclusion was fairly straightforward.

Look at your information flow. Follow it and find new ways to make it flow faster. If you can do that and know where your information is at anytime, you are done.

There is a lot of detail buried under that relatively straightforward statement. Content Services is part of a broader trend in the content management space and is here to stay. It has been here since CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Services) entered the picture almost a decade ago but now people are seeing it as more than a way to integrate systems.

The problem is that ECM (Enterprise Content Management) is still just part of the picture. Even if we use the latest tools without regard to the latest buzz words that define them. If we just focus on the content we are failing to solve what needs to be solved.

I could spend all day linking to old posts but I want to take some time to bring something new to the discussion. A lot has changed over the years and perspectives have been refined. The last few days have seen my mind wandering and debating this whole topic in my spare, and not so spare, time.

Let me sum it up for you, it is a false dichotomy. Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is not a thing you buy. It should not be taken into isolation. Content Services is useless as a replacement as it is completely different.

Today another tome was discovered. Written hastily in the margins of an IDOL manual was the following text. It is estimated that this was written two days after the conclusion of the previously discovered journal (which you should read 1st). The author is unknown.

If you see Open Text or CA buy the ECD, start lighting the funeral pyres because Documentum would be officially brain dead and waiting for the machines to be turned off.

Well, it happened. OpenText acquired Documentum. This brings to end the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) wars that began almost 20 years ago. Back then, the leaders were FileNet, Documentum, Oracle, and OpenText. FileNet is buried at IBM who is flirting with Box. Oracle is struggling to reestablish itself after bringing on former Documentum leaders but they are fading away.

Like this:

One thing I heard from MANY people at the AIIM conference was that the concept of an information professional as we understand it was flawed. The claim was that usage patterns of AIIM resources showed that members would join and engage to tackle a single project. Once that project was completed, they would leave AIIM and presumably go do something else that wasn’t information related. John Mancini, the outgoing CEO of AIIM, shared his thoughts on the current information professional in a four post series covering the history, evolution, environment, and future of the information professional.

Experience tells me that the conclusion is incorrect. There are a large number of people who spend careers in the space and dip into AIIM resources only periodically. It is also a conclusion is hard to confirm or deny because once they disengage from AIIM, it is tough to measure what people do next.